"Many of these people are educated, and hold jobs or positions that give them some form of power or influence over Black ...

In the early 20th century – a time when men held most positions of authority – Greene was a celebrated book agent, a curator and the first director of the Morgan Library. She also earned US$10,000 a ...

Larsen’s subject — two black women (played by Tessa Thompson and Ruth Negga) who pass for white in 1920s New York — discombobulates contemporary thinking about race and social identity.

Yet I’m often asked whether Greene mentions her passing as white in her writings. She did not. Greene was one of hundreds of thousands of light-skinned Black Americans who passed as white in the ...